River Thames - Newbridge, Oxfordshire

[Maceo]

A very beautiful spot, with open green meadows on the fishing side of the river. It is owned by 'The Plough AC', but they have day tickets for £3 adults and £2 juniors sold by the local farmer who comes around. There are lots and lots of bleak in the river at the moment. I chucked some bread in and the water boiled like piranha in the Amazon as they attacked it. They somersault over your float and attack pretty much any bait you throw in. I gave up with maggots and bread for that reason. I switched to sweetcorn and although they still attack it on the way down, it seems just a bit too big for them to fit in their mouths! The water seems pretty shallow. Maybe around 1.5 to 2m depth only and very reedy on the bottom. There are quite a few boats that pass during the day. On sunny days the Rose Revived pub hires out electric punts and these start buzzing up and down too. As far as fish are concerned, I've had several nice days down there catching roach up to about 0.6 kg weight. I have used sweetcorn as hookbait over hempseed thrown in. It is a very beautiful spot and very quiet with just a few walkers along the Thames path. I have seen a big deer and a fox along the other bank. There are lots of dragonflies and butterflies too. Yesterday I saw a huge fish swimming lazily along right by the bank in about 0.5m of water! I had my hook out at that moment and so swung my piece of sweetcorn right in front of him, but of course he didn't even glance at it. I think maybe it was a carp, judging from the shape of the head, but it is hard to tell when you can only see the fish's head. The farmer says that someone caught some big barbel in the river recently, so maybe it was one of those.